No-Mar Minaya

Bottling up your emotions is bad. Hiding them inside over the years is even worse and as a result, this is what you get:

Mets’ general manager Omar Minaya should be fired!

There, I said it, but somehow that doesn’t make me feel better.

Maybe it’s because the Mets just signed him to a three-year extension or maybe it has something to do with the fact that the Mets collapsed for the second consecutive year.

Who is to blame for the Mets pathetic performance for the second straight year?

While some will look to blame Mets’ manager Jerry Manuel, this is what I say to them: The Mets were 34-35 before Manuel took over, and 55-38 after he took the helm. Does that seem like grounds for firing?

Others will look to blame the players, with the old adage being, “Players are the ones who get paid to win games.” While this is true, who is the one responsible for signing the players?

Survey says: “The general manager is the one responsible for signing the players.” Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner.

It was Omar Minaya who went out and signed the bullpen of no-names, as I like to call them. That bullpen, which was the Mets downfall, was responsible for 29 blown saves. Yes, you heard correctly, “29 blown saves.” If they had just blown 15 saves, which by the way is still terrible, the Mets would have coasted to a division title. I now dub thee the blow-pen.

I’m not done yet.

Not to be lost in the shuffle are Minaya’s horrendous signings of players such as Moises Alou, Luis Castillo, and Orlando Hernandez. Alou played all of 15 games last season, Castillo was getting paid millions to sit on the bench, and Hernandez didn’t pitch a single inning for the Mets in 2008. How that can be the manager’s fault is beyond me.

It is obvious that all of these players are on the downside of their career (having had past injury issues while also all being over 33-years of age), but yet Minaya felt the need to invest in these players, when he could have been solidifying the bullpen.

However, by no means, is this Minaya’s first instance of poor judgment.

Minaya was fired as general manager of the Montreal Expos in 2005 due in large part to his poor history of decision-making. Minaya’s worst deal by far came when he was with the Expos. He traded prospects Cliff Lee, Grady Sizemore, and Brandon Phillips for pitcher Bartolo Colon.

For those of you who aren’t baseball enthusiasts, let me spell this out for you in terms you can understand. Lee is most likely going to win the Cy Young Award this year as the best pitcher in baseball after going 22-3, while Sizemore and Phillips are both regarded as two of the best players at each of their respective positions—centerfield and second base.

And where is Bartolo Colon you ask? Surely he must be a great player with Hall of Fame credentials.

Wrong!

While Colon has had a few good years, his contribution to the Expos was half a season. So you tell me: Would you trade three cornerstone players for a guy who was going to have no impact on your team in the long run?

My point exactly.

Okay, enough of the bashing for now. What got me going on the tirade in the first place is the fact that the Philadelphia Phillies, the bitter rivals of the Mets, are in the World Series. Is it because they are that much better than the Mets?

Absolutely not.

The Mets had a record of 11-7 against the Phillies this past season, showing that they did not lack the talent to be in the World Series themselves. They were simply missing a few key pieces to the bullpen, and for that reason I blame Minaya.

But don’t worry Mets’ fans; Minaya will be sticking around for at least another three seasons. Yippee!